


Mystery Meals and Louis Feels

by foxandbee



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Getting Together, I'm Serious, M/M, Popular Louis, References galore, Shy Harry, What Have I Done, Zarry bromance - Freeform, fucking ridiculous that's what this is, just so many references, this is just mostly banter and not much else, what even is this?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-04-13
Updated: 2014-04-13
Packaged: 2018-01-19 05:18:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1456912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foxandbee/pseuds/foxandbee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Oh my god, you really think I need to introduce myself?” Harry interrupts despairingly and Zayn heaves a sigh. “Zayn, we’ve been in the same English class since eighth grade, we played on the same football team all of last year, he was sitting front row when I had to use the emergency chemical shower in Biology last term! Does he really not even know who I am?”</p><p>“Hah, I forgot about that,” Zayn chuckles. “How could I forget that, that was awesome. People called you Roddy for weeks!”</p><p>“Roddy?”</p><p>“Because you looked like a drowned rat. You know, like in Flushed Away?”</p><p>Harry whines and thumps his head against the table, Zayn’s quick reflexes the only thing between him and a face full of mashed…something.</p><p>Alternatively, a story revolving around the lunchroom, unidentifiable food products, and Louis Tomlinson, the boy Harry is most definitely not stalking.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mystery Meals and Louis Feels

**Author's Note:**

> hi, so, i have nothing to say for myself except that uni is stressful and i've been feeling some serious high school nostalgia and i will probably live to regret this. for such a long time the working title for this was What The Fuck Am I Doing With My Life: The High School AU That Absolutely No-one Asked For. this has been sitting on my laptop for months and i re-read it this weekend and thought, fuck it, i'll whack it up and if anyone even likes it then i'll finish it. if not, let's all pretend this never happened. and yeah, that is the story of how this...thing came to be.  
> enjoy! xxx

**Monday.**

It’s chicken, definitely, because everything is always chicken, isn’t it? But then Harry takes a second look and thinks, no, maybe it might be pork. Or it could be beef. Veal? What’s the difference between beef and veal anyway?

Harry’s philosophical musings are cut short when a tray drops onto the space opposite him.

“Zayn, do you have any idea what this is?”

The boy across from him regards Harry’s lunch with as much interest as he can muster. Which, when it comes to Zayn, is not a whole hell of a lot. If there was an Olympic event for indifference Zayn would win gold, silver and bronze, every single time. He’d also probably fuck the judges and then not bat an eyelash when they handed him his medals. Which would only serve to impress them even more, really, if they’re judging a contest on apathy.

This analogy just went way beyond Harry’s control. It happens sometimes.

Oh god, wait, what if it’s actually horse?

“I think it could be lamb, mate,” Zayn replies, lazily pushing the mystery meat around with his fork.

“Lamb,” Harry repeats reverently, sitting up a bit in his chair. “I hadn’t even thought of that.”

Zayn just squints at him. His hand twitches where it lies on the table, like maybe he wants to slap it to his forehead. “Why don’t you just taste it and find out?”

“I can’t do that!” Harry exclaims, then, leaning across the table towards Zayn, he whispers, “It could be _horse meat_.”

This time Zayn can’t stop himself from face palming.

Harry slumps back in his seat. “Where’s Niall when you need him?” he moans.

“He is literally right over there,” Zayn says, voice muffled into his wrist.

“What? Where?”

“Sitting with Tomlinson.”

Harry perks right up, wiggling a little in his chair and craning his neck around. He freezes when he sees Zayn watching him from between his fingers, then coughs and rolls his shoulders. “Oh, Louis’ here?”

Zayn smirks at him. “Surprised it took you this long to notice.”

If there was an Olympic event for indifference Harry wouldn’t even get a participation award. He’s like a two year old when something interests him, he stares at it and makes grabby hands and drools until he gets what he wants.

“Why would I notice?” Harry may monumentally _suck_ at feigning nonchalance, but that doesn’t stop him from trying. Though it probably doesn’t help that he can’t drag his eyes away from the table across the lunchroom.

Harry can’t even fool his own cat on a good day, so he should’ve known he couldn’t fool Zayn Malik. “Because you stalk the poor kid like a creeper,” Zayn mutters, lips pursed around the top of his water bottle.

Harry splutters so hard that people at surrounding tables turn around to stare at him. Cher actually gets up and walks over to make sure he’s not choking on questionable meat products. Once he’s managed to convince her that he’s not really dying he turns back to Zayn. Zayn who is, of course, completely unconcerned with the potential death of his best and oldest friend.

“I do not _stalk_ him!” Harry hisses, even as he feels heat rising at the back of his neck.

“Okay, so what were you doing out on the footy pitch after hours last week, Haz?” It’s phrased like a question, but with the arching of a single brow it’s obvious that Zayn already knows the answer.

Shit.

“How did you know about that?” Harry grumbles.

Zayn just raises both his eyebrows, and oh crap. One of Zayn’s eyebrows is par for the course, his default expression, but _two_ eyebrows means there will be no surrender. Harry is _screwed._

“I was running laps,” he huffs. Which is _technically_ true. And it’s hardly Harry’s fault that he can use his feet and his eyes at the same time.

“But you’re not on the track team,” Zayn points out.

“I like to exercise,” Harry snaps back.

“At the exact same time as the football team?” Zayn wonders.

There’s a rapid-fire battle of wits taking place right in the middle of the lunchroom and yet no one seems to notice all the shots being fired.

“Coincidence. I had no idea they train on Wednesdays,” Harry sniffs.

“Mate," Zayn sighs. "You used to be _on_ the football team.”

Kill shot.

“He didn’t even see me, okay!”

“Yeah, that’s _really_ not helping your stalker defence.”

“I _do not_ stalk him!” Harry yelps, throwing his hands in the air and realising a moment too late that he’s just launched a metaphorical grenade. Aftershocks bounce off the concrete walls, echoing around the large space, and Harry can hear his own shrill voice ringing in his ears; the whole place is that eerily silent. Which really, when you think about it, is quite an accomplishment in a room full of self-obsessed teenagers. However, the more pressing matter is that the _entire fucking school_ is staring at him. Fuck. The _entire fucking school_ knows that he might possibly be stalking someone. Double fuck.

Zayn is rattling the table with how hard he’s laughing. And Zayn Malik publicly portraying emotion is such an anomaly in itself that Harry hopes it’ll be enough to detract from his humiliation.

He’s never really had the greatest luck though, and _everyone_ keeps staring at him. Even the lunch lady is staring at him. Harry feels betrayed. He liked Gladys.

Harry makes the fatal mistake of glancing across the lunchroom. Louis Tomlinson’s eyes are locked on him like two very big, achingly pretty spotlights. He’s staring at Harry just like every other student in the building, eyebrows raised and a curious smile pulling up the corners of his dainty lips. Then a breathy little laugh spills from between those lips and Harry would give up everything he’s ever owned for the chance to move to Chile. Louis tries to smother his giggles with the back of his hand but it’s too late, everyone else has started laughing too.

Harry sinks down in his seat until nothing but a tiny sliver of beet-red forehead is visible over the table.

He decides he’s done enough cardio for a while and forgoes running laps that afternoon.

**Tuesday.**

It kind of looks like a tomato, but Harry’s not convinced because it also kind of looks like a pepper. Or it could be a cucumber. It really would help if it had a definable colour. Harry pokes at the mush on his plate with a fork. It wobbles slightly, which is concerning.

“You dissecting your lunch again?” Zayn asks, as he sits down opposite and arranges himself on his chair like some kind of ancient idol in this modern day _hellhole_. (Harry’s very recently lost his enthusiasm for the lunchroom.)

“Well you don’t expect me to just eat it blindly do you?” Harry replies, frowning at what could be a mushroom.

“Why do you keep buying your lunch if you’re that worried about eating it? Watching your daily struggle is starting to become disturbing.”

Harry’s in a benevolent mood today, so he very generously doesn’t mention the fact that Zayn isn’t touching his food either.

“Optimism, Zayn,” Harry sighs, giving up and dropping his fork onto his tray. “I live in constant hope. You should try it sometime.”

Zayn snorts. “Is that what you call it?”

“What would you call it?” Harry wonders, furrowing up his eyebrows.

“A pathetic school-girl crush,” Zayn says with a shit-eating grin.

“On my lunch meat?” Harry is so extremely confused.

Zayn puts his head down onto the lunch table and groans for ten seconds straight. “No, you _wanker_ , on Tomlinson. God, that was such a fucking brilliant segue, why did I waste it on you?”

Then Zayn flings himself back against his chair, huffing dramatically and dropping his head back in disdain, the long line of his throat exposed. A collective sigh ripples through every female within a three table radius, and one girl is so preoccupied staring at Zayn that she trips over a stray backpack and brains herself on her friend’s shoulder. The lunch tray she was holding goes flying through the air, almost as if it were in slow motion, and Harry watches on in abject horror as the unfortunate soul’s midday meal lands with a wet squelch right in the lap of the most popular girl in school.

The thing with Taylor is that although she may look innocent enough, in reality those big blue eyes belie the devil incarnate. Harry privately thinks she’s like a female preying mantis, that she devours her sexual partners once she’s finished with them and _that’s_ the real reason why she goes through boyfriends so quickly. Of course, he’s never voiced this opinion out loud, because Taylor has spies in every corridor and corner of this school and Harry doesn’t particularly feel like getting his dick chopped off. He’s rather fond of his penis.

 _Anyway_ , the point is that some poor girl is about to be socially decimated and Zayn keeps sitting there, looking pretty, completely unaware of the utter destruction he’s just caused.

Harry winces as Taylor stands from the table, calmly scrapes off the worst of the mush with a napkin, and curls an arm around the shoulders of the petrified underclassman, leading her out of the lunchroom. To an outside observer it might appear that Taylor’s simply taking the girl to the bathroom to help her clean off her skirt, or even escorting the poor thing to the school nurse because, yeah, that’s definitely blood gushing out of her nose. But Harry knows better. He makes a mental note to find out the girl’s name and check if she’s in school tomorrow.

“Because I’m the greatest friend on this god-forsaken planet, I’m going to help you out,” Zayn announces.

“What?” Harry replies absently, still focused on the episode of _Animal Planet_ he just witnessed live.

“With Tomlinson,” Zayn clarifies. “I have decided to help you bag Tomlinson, because Lord knows I’m getting tired of your embarrassing pining.”

“So, really,” Harry drawls, “you’re doing this more for your own benefit than mine. Gee _thanks_ , how very charitable of you.”

Zayn narrows his eyes at him. “Do you want my help or not?”

Harry ducks his head and tries to look contrite. Because honestly, he’ll take all the help he can get. At this point he’d take wooing advice from Zach Galifianakis, and Zayn, well Zayn’s like the high school equivalent of Bradley Cooper. He’d be an idiot to pass up this opportunity.

“Yes, please.”

“Well okay then,” Zayn replies smugly. “Pick up your lunch and go over there,” he says, like it’s just that easy.

And Harry panics.

“What! _That’s_ your expert advice? Just go over there? I can’t just _go over there_ , Zayn! What the fuck kind of a Bradley Cooper are you!?”

Zayn just stares at him, long and hard, with his nose scrunched up like maybe befriending Harry in the third grade was the worst decision he’s ever made. Then he shakes his head and holds up a hand.

“Okay, first of all, what the bleeding hell is a Bradley Cooper? Is that the dude from Magic Mike? And second of all, _obviously_ you’re not going to _just_ go over there. You’re so freaking helpless you’re like Thumper and Bambi _combined_. He’d eat you alive.”

Harry doesn’t even know where to _begin_ with all of that.

“Um, even though I’m pretty sure that was an insult, I’m choosing to see it as a compliment, because Thumper is cute as fuck. Also, _the dude from Magic Mike!?_ ” Harry is so indignant he feels the need to throw his hands around. “I don’t even know which dude you’re referring to because there were so many hot guys in that movie I was almost arrested for public indecency when I saw it in cinemas. But I’m going to assume you meant Channing Tatum, which leads me to my next point of _how the hell_ can you not differentiate between Bradley Cooper and Channing Tatum? I swear to god, you are the most painfully straight person I have ever encountered.”

By the end of this rant Harry is panting and Zayn is blowing bubbles into his Sprite bottle. Once Harry is finished wheezing Zayn looks up again.

“You done?”

“Think I got it all out, yeah.”

Zayn nods and pats his hand. “Cool. So my ignorance of Hollywood heartthrobs aside, shall we get back to your wooing?”

“Yeah, alright.”

“Clearly, you’re not going to just walk up and introduce yourself–”

“Oh my god, you really think I need to _introduce_ myself?” Harry interrupts despairingly and Zayn heaves a sigh. “Zayn, we’ve been in the same English class since eighth grade, we played on the same football team all of last year, he was sitting front row when I had to use the emergency chemical shower in Biology last term! Does he really not even know who I am?”

“Hah, I forgot about that,” Zayn chuckles. “How could I forget that, that was awesome. People called you Roddy for weeks!”

“Roddy?”

“Because you looked like a drowned rat. You know, like in Flushed Away?”

Harry whines and thumps his head against the table, Zayn’s quick reflexes the only thing between him and a face full of mashed…something.

“Okay, seriously, man, pull it together,” Zayn admonishes, slapping Harry upside the head. “Let’s see your war face! Louis Tomlinson is never going to go out with a loser.”

“May as well quit while I’m ahead then,” Harry mumbles in return.

“I will not hesitate to punch you in the balls.”

“Alright, alright!” Harry sits up again with a sigh. “Consider this my war face.”

“Oh I think my bunny slippers just ran for cover,” says Zayn, unimpressed.

Harry bares his teeth and growls. On a scale of pathetic to _Teen Wolf_ , Harry’s growl lands at around Baby Simba. He’s happy with that.

“Scary,” Zayn snorts. “As I was saying, you’re not _just_ going to walk over there. Because I am brilliant – and don’t you fucking roll your eyes at me, I’m perfectly happy to go be some other loser’s wingman – I have concocted a genius plan to kill two birds with one stone. So riddle me this, dearest Harry. What do Louis Tomlinson and cooked lunches have in common?”

Harry sits there in silence, mentally retracing his steps since waking up that morning, trying to pinpoint the exact moment when he fell into an alternate universe because _this is the weirdest fucking lunchtime in the combined history of both lunches and time._

Zayn kicks him under the table, hard. “Stop questioning reality and answer the fucking question!”

“How did you know I was questioning reality?” Harry asks suspiciously. Maybe Alternate-Zayn can read minds.

“Because you’ve got that constipated, What-The-Fuck-Is-Happening-On-Supernatural look on your face.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“Right, well, I don’t know. What do Louis Tomlinson and cooked lunches have in common, Zayn?”

Zayn sits forward in his seat with a grin that’s more teeth than merriment. “You are creepily obsessed with the both of them.”

Harry is not amused. “You’re really proud of yourself for that one, aren’t you?”

“I am indeed. Back to the plan.” Zayn drops his voice and leans across the table like they’re planning a top-secret military operation or something. Which isn’t really an irrelevant metaphor because Harry sure as hell feels like he’s about to be shot. His stomach is churning and his palms are sweating and his mind is screaming at him _Run away! Run far, far away!_

“The plan is simple yet effective. You want to know what your lunch is supposed to be, yes? And you also want the object of your affections to notice you, yes?” Harry nods along at all the right moments. “Alright, so who do we know that’s happy to eat leftover pizza out of the garbage and also happens to be currently sitting with the object of your affections?”

Harry whips his head around to look for Niall and finds him covered in butter, talking around the entire bread roll stuffed in his mouth.

“Exactly,” Zayn says emphatically.

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

“I just talk to Niall?”

“You just talk to Niall. If you happen to make eye contact with Louis, then say hey, be normal, try not to throw up on him.”

“I don’t think I can do this, Zayn,” Harry whines desperately.

Zayn shoves Harry’s lunch tray into his white-knuckled hands and pushes Harry’s chair out from the table with his foot. When Harry doesn’t move Zayn gets up, walks around the table and physically drags Harry from his seat by the ear.

“That was embarrassing,” he states. “I am embarrassed to be seen with you. Now go, before I go for you.”

Harry scrambles away before Zayn can do anything drastic. He forces himself to take deep, calming breaths as he walks across the lunchroom, clutching his tray in a vain attempt to stop his hands from shaking. He can do this. He can talk to Niall. He can say hey to Louis. He can be normal.

Harry is now close enough to hear Louis’ laughter, and it’s high and clear and perfect. It makes him want to projectile vomit his own spleen.

But before he can make a strategic exit, or at least try to make it appear as if he was just walking to the bins, Niall spots him.

“Mate!” Niall yells, and just as Harry is about to wither under the gaze of the entire football table, Niall has him wrapped up in a bear hug.

Thank the fucking lord for Niall Horan.

“How are ya, mate? Long time no see!” Niall booms, pulling away from the hug but not away from Harry, draping a heavy arm around his shoulders and keeping Harry from jumping out of his own skin with nerves.

“We saw each other in Maths this morning. You stole my muffin!” Harry says incredulously.

Niall grins cheekily. “Well, yeah, but that was hours ago. Also, have I told you lately that I love you?”

And this is the brilliant thing about Niall, this way he has with people. Even though Niall is friends with practically the entire student body, he never makes you feel like one of the crowd. He’ll always single you out, always make you feel special, and there’s never anything disingenuous about it. The kid just honestly loves everyone.

Which is exactly how he became one of the most popular guys in school. Second only to football-prodigy, theatre-extraordinaire, hot-like-burning Louis Tomlinson.

“So how is that goddess you call a mother?”

Also, just like Zayn, Harry’s known Niall since third grade. He turned up in class one day, fresh off the plane from Ireland, took one look at Zayn with his wide eyes and Harry with his scrawny limbs and decided, for some unfathomable reason, that they were the people he wanted to steal food from. Zayn grew into his face and started breaking hearts all over, Harry grew into his body, although his coordination is still dubious, and Niall never grew out of stealing all their food.

“Mum’s great, thanks, please stop hitting on her when you come over,” Harry replies drily, to which Niall starts cackling.

Someone clears their throat off to the side and Harry looks over to find Louis Tomlinson, along with the rest of the football team, staring at them expectantly.

He tries his very hardest not to appear petrified.

“Who’s your friend, Niall?” Louis asks with the quirk of an eyebrow and Harry’s heart lands somewhere near his toes. Louis Tomlinson has no idea who he even is.

But before either of them can say anything, Louis answers his own question.

“Wait, never mind.” Then he grins, big and bright and pointy. “Hey Roddy.”

Fuck. So he does remember the Biology incident.

“Hey _Lewis_. How are you?”

Niall snorts and Louis looks startled. Not half as startled as Harry though, because _what just happened_? He opened his mouth. He opened his mouth and words came out and he said hey to Louis and _he was normal_.

Less normal is the internal freak out he’s having over _being normal_. God, what is Harry’s life?

“My name’s Lou- _ee_ , actually. The S is silent,” Louis says primly.

“Well, my name’s Har _ry_ , actually. The wet rodent is silent,” he replies, deadpan.

Louis throws his head back laughing, and _god_ , Harry just made Louis laugh. He wants to do it again; he wants to do it every day for the rest of forever. Along with other things. Things best not thought of in a high school cafeteria lest awkward and inappropriate physical reactions occur.

When Louis’ finished laughing he tilts his head to one side, watching Harry thoughtfully.

“I know,” is all he says.

Harry glances across the lunchroom to Zayn, who grins wide and winks at him. Someone walks into a wall.


End file.
